It is common for certain persons to take a variety of pills for treatment of various conditions. Typically, the pills are taken at spaced intervals throughout the day, and it is often necessary to take different combinations of pills at different intervals throughout the day.
Keeping track of the pills to be taken can become very cumbersome, particulary for an aged or disabled patient. Accordingly, various devices have been developed for dispensing pills or for alerting a patient to the necessity of taking a pill.
Devices such as those shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,815,780 (Bauer) and 4,207,992 (Brown) use rotatable trays having a plurality of compartments for receiving pills. When a tray is aligned with a dispensing chute, the pills fall into the chute and are thus available to the patient.
Other dispensing systems are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,395,829 (Cogdell, et al.), 3,968,900 (Stambuk), and 4,223,801 (Carlson).